Brookline, MA - Steven Foster and Vinnie Costello each had solo home runs, but league-leading Northeastern took the opening game of a three-game Colonial Athletic Association series Friday, 8-4, at Friedman Diamond.
 
The Huskies improved to 21-17 on the season and 10-3 in the CAA. Hofstra fell to 10-29 overall and 3-10 in league play.
 
Nate Borges (2-3) earned the win for the Huskies, allowing two runs on five hits in six innings of work. Tyler Brown threw 2 1/3 innings of scoreless relief to earn his first save.
 
Teddy Cillis (0-8) allowed four runs on six hits in four innings and was tagged with the loss.
 
Foster hit a leadoff home run in the top of the first to stake the Pride to a 1-0 lead. The Huskies tied the game in their turn at bat on Ryan Solomon's sacrifice fly. Solomon would break the tie with a two-run home run in the third that put Northeastern up for good, 3-1.
 
With Northeastern leading, 4-1, Costello hit his fifth home run of the season in the fifth to make the Pride's deficit two. However, Northeastern would pull away in the bottom of the inning with three runs. Pat Madigan had a two-run triple and John Mazza followed with a sacrifice fly to make it a 7-2 game. 
 
Northeastern built the lead to 8-2 with a run in the sixth, before Hofstra cut the lead to four in the seventh on a two-run single from Vito Friscia.
 
Chris Weiss and Seamus Brazill each threw perfect innings of relief for the Pride, in the seventh and eighth innings, respectively.
 
The teams will meet again Saturday in game two with a 1 p.m. start time.